"Misleading" is the politest term I can think of to describe this . . .

For more years than I care to remember, I have been a user of the old "Norton File Manager" application in its various guises (e.g. it was packaged as part of Norton Navigator some years ago).  Back in the days of DOS I used XTREE a lot, and "NFM" seemed to be the logical progression from that.

Now, I have to admit, NFM's days are numbered as it doesn't work reliably under Windows7 - it keeps on crashing with "Smartheap" errors.  Upon look for an alternative I came across something called "WinNC" which purports to be a "Windows Norton Commander Clone".

There was a "try before you buy" download available so I thought I'd give it a go.

Frankly it's far more flashy and cumbersome than NFM ever was, but it seemed to work reasonably well, and eventually I felt tempted by the popup splash screen you get when you start the application :-

Consequently I decided to have a little look at the purchasing options, as just less than 20 Euros was quite tempting.

Upon following the link what I was presented with was this :-

. . .which got me somewhat annoyed!

Trying an alternative route and looking at the GB Pounds options produced this :-

. . . so I really don't think I'll bother, in fact I think I'll uninstall it and look for something else!

I understand perfectly (thinking of a famous quotation my Mark Twain) that taxes are unavoidable, but that isn't the point here.

Which as a shame really, because at the price quoted in the application splash screen I was sorely tempted.

My Cup Runneth Over ...

So many interesting things going on, and not enough minutes in the day in which to do them!

The dilemma here at G4FUI is that with the coming-to-life of Sunspot Cycle 24, the HF bands have taken on a new life.  Surges in solar/geomagnetic activity, bursts of enhanced propagation, spells of near blackout conditions, auroral effects, D-Layer Absorption effects, it's ALL going on!

Just making sure my feet remain firmly planted on the floor, my wire antenna came down a week ago after it was put under too much strain by the weight of apples on a branch of a tree which has begun to straddle it.

It strikes me this time round, that the new solar maximum when we get to it will have an enormous number of internet-connected folks running sophisticated DSP-based software examining every detail of it from every angle.   It really doesn't get much better than that does, it, if you happen to be a radio enthusiast?

Bring it on!

Weekends are just too short!

Working away from home during the week inevitably that the weekend proper gets off to a slow and delayed start.

Generally I am so pooped on Friday evening that I am incapable of doing anything remotely demanding, and 24 hours later I am just starting to feel like myself again.

This is how it was last weekend.

Then there is the lawn mowing, plus doing the same for a neighbour who has had the misfortune of having had a heart-attack recently.

The band had a gig too, so that took care of Saturday.

Then there is the paperwork.  You have to be very careful working away that things don't get missed, credit card bills and the like.

What I am trying to say is that, even though the transistors for my TS-180S had arrived, I never got round to fitting the replacement into my PLL WBA.

However, a chance conversation with a colleague about a really neat application from the Sysinternals people (now assimilated by the Borg (sorry, Microsoft!)) called "Desktops" which allows windows users to have multiple desktops in the same way that Ubuntu users have been able to for quite some time.

This little program was downloaded in a trice and installed almost as quickly, and WOW it really is great!

If you do bizarre things with PCs like I do, then this little gem is a godsend.   However, my rather bizarre setup involves having three PCs on line (one is remote in the shed, the other two in my house "radio room") and as all three PCs how potentially have four desktops available at the click of a mouse, then you can guess how confused a fatigued brain can become.